EATING LESS ONLINE

INTRODUCTORY WEBINAR

TESTIMONIALS

“I can sense the shift in my thought process and I am no longer grazing from the fridge all night.”
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

“This is the only book I have seen with something new to say about compulsive eating. There are no fads or magic wands in this book, just straight, can’t argue reality, and lots and lots of help.”
AC

“EATING LESS has provided me with a light at the end of a tunnel on many occasions. Overeating is not something that is commonly recognised as an addiction such as smoking or drugs. However, once you start to view overeating in this way, everything falls into place.”
SM

Q&A: Insulin resistance

As the author of two books on food addiction, and as someone who has been studying this subject for two decades, I want to add that if any of the three macronutrients is more addictive, it’s the carbohydrates. Almost every book I read about all of this (and I read a lot of them) states that developing a fat-burning metabolism will “get rid of the cravings” for you.

First of all, that’s not a huge help when you’re first starting out. But perhaps more importantly, it’s smart to keep in mind that you will continue to live in a culture that idealises carbs of all kinds, and at the very least makes them seem normal and benign.

There will be temptations for you and no doubt there will be imperfections in what you eat. The promise of craving elimination is certainly a hugely attractive one, but this does at least partly depend on how you define craving. This is one of many reasons I prefer to use the term addictive desire. It might help you to see these terms as describing two different things.

At the very least, even if you never embark on low-carb-high-fat eating, even as a trial, you have already benefited from eating less. As you say, you have made some positive changes. You may or may not be ready to take on this next step, but I don’t know a better way to address the problem you’ve presented of not being able to lose weight.

Thanks for covering this one Gillian. I’ve been suffering with insulin resistance for years and this is a great reminder that you can reverse or control the issue.

So many health professionals have told me to loose weight to deal with insulin resistance, but as you’ve pointed out, insulin resistance makes it harder to loose weight so it seems like an impossible task. Plus I struggle because it’s putting focus back on weight and am always conscious not to do this in order to help tackle my addictive desire to overeat.

Your article has inspired me to firstly focus on this again – because it’s so important for health, but also to really focus on changing what’s going on at a cell level, which I think will also help me to shift the focus away from my weight.

An excellent article, Gillian, which mirrors my own experience to a tee.

By managing my insulin response (limiting all processed carbs including grains, starches, most fruit) and upping natural fats (not processed seed oils) I found that “eating less” just followed naturally to the extent that I comfortably eat twice a day (lunch/tea; a 6-8 hour window as per P Barnes comment), never feel hungry and never even need to snack in between! I face carb temptation in my daily life but use your technique of facing the addictive desire and taking responsibility in that moment to make a free choice (invariably I choose health over cake, it is an easy decision actually). Fifteen months into limiting carbs and upping healthy fats I am still comfortable with this way of eating and reaping the benefits (a miracle, to me).

You are so right when you point out that the onus should be on managing insulin not ‘losing weight’ (or exercising more for that matter), particularly as losing weight invariably means being recommended a low fat diet (which just means you never get satiated and get really hungry and miserable quickly) and that, coupled with ‘exercise more’ means you work up your appetite even more! A double whammy.

One more interesting side effect of this way of eating is the huge improvement in my moods; I put this down to managing my blood sugars by keeping them very stable. I do not miss the extreme highs and lows (from overeating addictive carbs) which contributed to the almost permanent state of anxiety I lived under.

Like you, Gillian, I keep up with books and articles being published on this subject, word is getting out into mainstream and, although there is resistance from established government agencies and vested interests in the food and pharma industries, this is a bottom up revolution. People like me are doing it for themselves and realising that it works for us (insulin resistant people).

Wonderful post, once again you read my mind! I recently tried LCHF and did find it helped with hunger control. However, I found it hard to follow for longer than a couple of weeks because even moderate low carb is too high in animal-based foods for my comfort (too long to go into the reasons here). Question: would it work to eat LCHF for a period of time, until blood sugar and insulin sensitivity are back to normal, and then up the carbs a bit, but having learned our lesson and so choosing low-glycemic foods like beans and whole grains and the occasional sweet treat? Like a proper blue zone Mediterranean Diet?

I think you can only try this out to see what works for you, and there’s plenty of research supporting a Med diet. However, animal-based foods don’t necessarily need to be included in LCHF, as this is more about high fat than high protein. All forms of coconut fat, olive oil, olives and avocados are all in that vegetarian high-fat group. And some more protein could come from a whey supplement.

Thanks for this comment, Luce – I think you speak for many. Yes, I’ve got tons of insight and tips on how to implement this sort of advice (or any other for that matter). This is exactly what my work is all about; not the nutritional advice itself but how to make it a real and lasting part of your life with food. This is so often what’s ignored, and will make all the difference. I suggest you read at least one of my books (Ditching Diets is a good one to start with) and consider doing an online webinar series with me. Next one starts September 24 – think about it?

I know about this, but wonder how it is that the Blue Zones, regions of the world where a relatively high percentage of the populations live degenerative disease free into their 90’s and to 100, eat diets high in starches, including grain-based foods, though of course not modern manufactured ones. Their animal sources of calories play quite a small role comparatively speaking. It does sound like they don’t eat frequently and do eat quality fats. I’ve had quite good results for the last year gravitating towards having my meals be made up of their foods. I had already been using your principles of times and plans. The research that yielded the MIND diet showed a benefit in delaying dementia in people who ate a minimum of three servings of whole grains a day, as well as other routine practices. But I don’t doubt most of the population of the developed world would benefit from generous reductions of the common starches in the diet. I know I have, as I have by reducing eating frequency. I’m at the point now at which I pretty much don’t trust nearly every impulse to eat food randomly. In fact, when I’m eating regular meals, I’ve come to believe that a random impulse to eat something outside of them is a sign that it’s probably not a good thing to eat! Simple desire for food is a very poor indicator of need.

Hi Maggi – and thanks for your excellent comments. Whole books have been written about this, so challenging to reply in a short blog. Mostly, I was addressing a very particular and fairly common problem I hear from clients, those who cut back on their eating but don’t lose weight as they had expected. There could be a number of explanations, but it can be helpful to know about the ways in which metabolism is compromised after many years of overeating. If a person is overweight, it’s very likely there is some insulin resistance, so it would be crucial to address that. I agree with you that reducing eating frequency is beneficial – and yes, absolutely, that desire for food is a very poor indicator of need!

Just want to add that this recent MIND study you mentioned looked at daily food intake that included three servings of whole grains a day and compared outcomes with those people who were consuming processed and manufactured grains each day. The whole grains came out better, but low carb wasn’t part of this study at all.